Second company walks for another third of a kay before Lerial repeats the cantering maneuver, this time for a little over two hundred yards before slowing.
“The other wizard can sense where we are, just like you can?” asks Bhurl once the company is at a walk again.
“That’s true, but the other wizard doesn’t seem to be watching all the time, and I’m trying to use that so that we can get closer without tiring the horses too much.”
Bhurl nods. “We might be able to do that.”
After perhaps another glass, just after second company has ridden past the turnout on the north side of the main road that leads to what remains of Nevnarnia, has closed the gap to well under half a kay, and been walking at a comfortable pace for the last quarter glass, Lerial senses that the Meroweyans have moved to a fast walk. He smiles. “Second company! Fast walk.”
Shortly, Lerial can sense the Meroweyans slowing as they enter an open space, and for a moment he is puzzled. Then he senses something else near the north side of the clearing, a barricade of some sort—The log barricade and fire pits where the first fights inside the Verd took place.
The Meroweyans come to a stop, and Lerial wonders why, until he feels that one of the wagons has tilted. After perhaps as little as a tenth of a glass, during which time second company reduces the gap between the two forces to perhaps five hundred yards, although Lerial cannot yet see the rearguard of the retreating force, the withdrawal continues.
When second company enters the clearing with the log barricade, directly ahead is a wagon, still tilted, with its right front wheel caught and the axle bearing at an angle to the axletree. Obviously, the Meroweyans had quickly unhitched the draft horses and unloaded what they could from the disabled wagon and then hurried on.
Lerial looks to Bhurl once more. “Have the company follow me. We’ll need to skirt the firepits, or we’ll likely lose some mounts the way they did that wagon.”
Just beyond the wagon is the back side of the log barricade, and outside of spots where the wood has charred, it appears fairly solid. There are still some stick figures on poles that appear almost untouched.
Lerial can see the rearguard of the Meroweyans ahead. Should you charge them? That doesn’t seem right, not after all his men have been through, and they cannot reduce the number of Meroweyans from a distance because they have no arrows left, not to speak of.
You’ll have to use order and lightnings … But that is something he doesn’t want to do along the narrow road in the forest, not with the risk of setting yet another fire, and with no elders and no clouds in sight for rain that might damp it. He’d hoped to catch them in one of the clearings or meadows. Now …
“Ser?” asks Bhurl.
“We follow until they’re out of the Verd.”
“Begging your pardon, ser, but…”
“I didn’t say we’d do nothing. We just can’t do it here.”
“Yes, ser.”
Lerial can tell the squad leader isn’t totally happy, but he doesn’t want to explain, especially if what he has in mind doesn’t work. It should. You’ve done it once. At the same time, Bhurl should know why. After several moments, he adds, “If we attack now, they’ll use chaos, and we’ll be caught in the middle of a fire, and they might escape … or both.”
“Hadn’t thought of that, ser. Makes sense.”
It does, even if it’s only a partial truth. He still worries as he finishes guiding the company around the depressions that had been firepits and back onto the road. When they reach the more southern area where the very first skirmish in the Verd had taken place, and where the companies had bivouacked awaiting the Meroweyan assault on the Verd itself, he again guides his men around the low pits that he can sense and back onto the road.
Ahead of them, the Meroweyans are riding through the road gates that they must have opened once they had poured through the gaps they had burned in the tree-wall of the Verd. The riders move in measured steps. Lerial lets them, although he increases the pace slightly, not wanting the Meroweyans to be too far away when second company leaves the Verd.
Once all of second company clears the road gates, Lerial orders the squads to form up on the still-matted grass late in the afternoon on a warm spring day. The Meroweyans have also formed up, but make no move to attack. The Meroweyan force is composed of riders bearing different arms, some with spears, others with small bucklers and long blades, and still others with light armor and curved sabrelike blades, clearly a mixed group of survivors, but a group that numbers more than two companies, while what remains of second company, without fourth squad and with all the casualties suffered since the first attacks, is little more than half a company.
For all the differential in force size, Lerial doubts that the Meroweyans will attack, but he waits to see what they will do.
The two forces face each other, one in dull golden brown and one in forest brown. After some time, perhaps as long as a tenth of a glass, a horn sounds. The first two ranks of the Meroweyans hold fast, but all the other riders begin to turn their mounts.
Are you just going to let them go? For a moment, Lerial is tempted, until he recalls all the burned hamlets, the thousands who are dead and the thousands more homeless … and the thought of letting the Meroweyan survivors ride away, as if they had done nothing wrong, is not something he can accept. Nor will it send the right message to Casseon.
He order-reaches out to the ground beneath the middle of the Meroweyan force, seeking a piece of something, something small from which he can more easily separate order and chaos. Almost, immediately separated flows of silvered black and golden red shoot skyward, unseen except by Lerial, followed by brilliant pinpoints of light that all cannot fail to see.
A chaos shield flares in the middle of the Meroweyan force.
In less than a moment, lightning flashes everywhere, crisscrossing and turning Meroweyan riders and their mounts into pillars of flame and then instant columns of ash—except for the small area protected by the wizard’s shields.
Lerial creates more order-chaos separation, focusing it on the wizard’s shields and simultaneously creating stronger protective order coils before second company.
Lightning rages against the chaos shield, focused chaos against disordered but latticelike chaos … and Lerial can feel a tension, as if every hair on his head and body is standing erect, while everything and everyone around him is fixed in place, unable to move.
Then … then, a brilliant flash of light sears across Lerial’s eyes, momentarily blinding him, as the chaos shield disintegrates, revealing to his senses, but for a moment, a woman in brilliant white, with red hair that is the essence of fire.
The brilliance vanishes. Everything is cloaked in a darkness so profound that Lerial can see nothing, nothing at all. The blackness fades slowly into dark gray, and progressively lighter gray until Lerial is looking southward over what once had been a sweep of tall grass, taking in the yards and yards of smoldering grass, the charred remains of what had been men and mounts … and a circle of fine gray ash, and nothing else, that had held a chaos wizard, one lone woman.
How could you have known? Yet he understands that, woman or not, in the end, he could do no different. For all that, he feels like he should somehow mourn, not even knowing what he might be mourning.
Amid that devastation he can make out the three Meroweyan wagons, of which little remains but the iron wheel rims, the iron axle bearing rings, other iron parts he cannot identify with charred wooden remnants that might have been anything. He can feel, through his recurrent pounding headache, that Bhurl and Fhentaar have reined up several yards away, but not approached nearer, whether out of deference or fear, he cannot tell.
“Angel-flamed … never see anything like that…”
“Might give Duke Casseon something to think about…”
“Might. Too bad Moraris couldn’t see this,” Fhentaar continues in a low voice to Bhurl.
“He’d have asked the captain to spare the wago
ns so he could trade them,” returns the other squad leader.
Moraris would have said something about capturing them, that they would have been worth something … After that vagrant thought, Lerial just sits in the saddle and looks across the charred ground. His eyes burn, and his head still throbs.
He feels tired … and like sowshit.
What else could you do? You could have lost half the company if you’d charged them with sabres. And yet … to strike them down with lightning … But they used chaos-fire against both the Verdyn Lancers and the Verd itself.
None of that makes him feel any better.
LXXVII
On sixday evening, second company stays in some of the houses in Ironwood that have not yet been reoccupied. Lerial does not bother with detailing Lancers to bury the remnants of the Meroweyans. There are likely no remnants to speak of, and after all his men have done, that is something that the locals can do—or not—as they wish. He sleeps, if not well, with troubling dreams that he cannot recall once he is fully awake. While the throbbing in his head has eased, it has not eased that much, but at least his eyesight is not blurred.
After eating a mixture whose ingredients he does not wish to know for what passes as breakfast, Lerial meets with the squad leaders, and then effectively acting as squad leader for first squad, with those rankers. Then he begins to groom the gelding, under skies that are largely clear, except to the southwest. He also notices a faint acrid smoky odor, the same one that, he realizes, he has smelled ever since he loosed the lightning the afternoon before. Yet the air is clear, without a sign of haze or smoke. Immediately after he grooms and then saddles his mount, a thin man in a faded brown shirt and worn brown trousers approaches … just before Lerial is about to order the company to mount up and begin the return to Escadya.
“You’re the captain here?”
“I am,” replies Lerial warily, trying to be pleasant despite the headache that remains far from entirely fading.
“Mite bit young for that, aren’t you?” The man shakes his head. “What happened to those cess-swilling Meroweyans? They be back any time soon?”
“Almost all of them are dead. Those that aren’t are wounded or captives in Escadya.” Lerial pauses, then adds, “There might be a few wandering around here and there, but they’d likely be near Escadya … maybe Faerwest.”
“You’d not be stuffing my ears now, would you?”
“No. Most of them are dead.” Lerial’s voice comes out flat.
“How’d that happen, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Lerial does, especially with the annoying, almost whining, tone of the man’s speech that seems to worsen the pounding inside his skull, but he manages a smile. “The Meroweyans lost almost ten companies in the skirmishes with the Verdyn Lancers on their march toward Verdell. Some of the Lancers lured one army into a trap at Faerwest, and the elders burned them up in a huge fire. I understand the fire also destroyed the town. The other army, the one that came through here, attacked the Lancers just south of Escadya. More than half the invaders were killed by lightning. The others were killed, wounded, or captured by the Lancers. We destroyed the last two companies just outside the road gates south of Nevnarnia yesterday afternoon.”
“‘Destroyed.’ Big word for a young fellow like you.”
Lerial smiles faintly. “Go and see.”
Abruptly, the man edges back, then nods his head. “Be thanking you.” With that, he turns and walks quickly away.
Lerial watches him for several moments, then mounts. Second company needs to get back to Escadya.
A glass later, as second company is riding northwest on the main road, empty except for them, he is still pondering why the man, clearly a resident of Ironwood, had so suddenly decided to cut his inquisition of Lerial short. Had it been the certainty in Lerial’s voice? Or something else?
He glances up as the light seems to fade, realizing that a cloud must have crossed the sun. Now there are clouds. His smile is wry. The smile fades as he realizes he still smells the bitter acridity of smoke, if faintly.
Riding beside Lerial, Bhurl clears his throat. “Been thinking, ser. Might there be many chaos wizards in the Heldyan forces?”
In the Heldyan forces? “I wouldn’t know. Before we came to Verdheln, I knew that Duke Casseon had some wizards, but no one seemed to know how many. I’ve not heard anything about mages or wizards in either Afrit or Heldya. I’m sure there must be some. Why?”
“Couldn’t say, ser. Except it seems like … well … trouble just doesn’t visit alone, if you know what I mean. The Afritans are stirring things up. Same for the Heldyans … and here comes Duke Casseon.”
“They say troubles come triple,” replies Lerial with a smile. “It could be that the Duke and the Mirror Lancers have taken care of the others as well.”
“Be good if they have.” Bhurl nods, then frowns. “You know those wizards … they’re sneakylike. Can’t even see if they’re with armsmen. Can make a man a mite skittish thinking about it.”
“We managed.”
“Yes, ser, we did. Mostly you, ser.”
“It wouldn’t have been possible without all the Mirror Lancers who came, or the majer, or the elders of the Verd. It took all of us.”
“Yes, ser.” Bhurl offers a smile.
For the next kay or so, the squad leader’s words prey on Lerial, and he can’t help thinking, What happens if you don’t see or sense a chaos wizard? What can you do about that? Can you make an order diversion pattern that is part of the flow of order and chaos around you all the time?
Lerial has the definite feeling that is something he needs to work on … and soon, or as soon as his head stops pounding. He also has the feeling that there are other things he needs to do … if he could just think of them.
LXXVIII
It is well past seventh glass, twilight is deepening into night when second company rides into the training compound on the south end of Escadya and reins up before the stables. It is more than a glass later before Lerial finishes settling the company and making sure that they have had the first real meal in three days. He acts as squad leader for Korlyn, as he has been doing, although that isn’t the best idea, but he has no real idea which of the Verdyn Lancers might be best for the position, and there certainly aren’t any spare Mirror Lancers to take the squad. He can still recall, all too vividly, the look on Korlyn’s face, when he had left to chase down the Meroweyans.
Only after all that does he seek out Altyrn, who has not intruded.
The majer is waiting, standing outside the study he has used for eightdays, with the door slightly ajar. “Welcome back. I presume you had some success?”
How do you answer that? “I did what I set out to do.”
“Come in and tell me about it.” Altyrn steps to the side and opens the door, gesturing for Lerial to enter.
Lerial does so and then seats himself on the single straight-backed chair in front of the narrow desk. Absently, he massages his forehead with his right hand for a moment. “Before we start, what about Juist and Denieryn and their companies?”
“Juist is fine. Denieryn…” Altyrn shakes his head, then closes the door, and sits down behind the desk. “He lost almost two squads to firebolts, and he was one of the first hit. I’ve transferred the survivors from sixth company to third to bring it up to full strength. We’ll move trainees into the other four companies.” Altyrn looks directly at Lerial, then smiles. “You know, when you headed out after the Meroweyans, that’s the first time you’ve taken the initiative to do something well beyond your orders.”
“I could see it was necessary.”
“It might have been, but you have yet to tell me what it was that you did.”
Lerial can see that Altyrn likely has already guessed, but it is good manners, and safer, to describe exactly what happened, not necessarily detail by detail. “We followed them all the way to the road gates south of Nevnarnia and out onto the grasslands. They formed up. They had about tw
o companies worth of mounted armsmen, but all kinds, as if there were a few from one kind of company and a few from others. There was one white wizard. We faced each other, and then they started to turn and leave.” Lerial pauses. “I used order and lightning to slaughter them to the last person. She was the white wizard.”
Altyrn nods.
“We spent the night in Ironwood and rode back. Here we are.”
“Why do you think it was necessary to slaughter them all?” Altyrn’s voice is calm and level.
“I don’t want to have to fight them again, and the Verdyn shouldn’t have to, either.”
“That leaves the question of prisoners. There are more than a hundred. Most are wounded. What would you suggest?”
“Make all of them help clean up the mess they made. Then send them back to Casseon … unless they want to stay, if the elders will have them, or you think any would make decent Mirror Lancers.”
“Some might. We’ll have to see.” Altyrn clears his throat. “What you did to Casseon’s armsmen and wizards was drastic, even for war. Don’t you think that your acts will just enrage Casseon and prompt him to send an even larger force?”
“It might. But it might not if he received a dispatch from the Duke of Cigoerne pointing out that two squads of Mirror Lancers and six companies of Verdyn Lancers destroyed over forty companies and at least six white wizards … and that Cigoerne has no designs on any other part of Merowey, but does respect the right of the people of the Verd to choose who will rule them, particularly since the Duchy of Merowey has provided neither assistance nor leadership to Verdheln.”
“That last part might be a bit strong.”
“You’re right.”
“We don’t have to worry about that part of it.” Altyrn smiles again. “Your father does. He will worry, but likely not too much. He sent us to keep Casseon from taking over the Verd. We did. Or rather, you did much of that.”
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